Communications in Humanities Research
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Communications in Humanities Research
Vol. 10, 31 October 2023
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An Analysis of the Concept of Death in Chronicle of a Blood Merchant
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Abstract
Chronicle of a Blood Merchant is one of the masterpieces of Yu Hua’s late pioneering literature, which has an important place in the history of contemporary Chinese literature. This article takes the analysis of Chronicle of a Blood Merchant as its research direction, mainly using Heidegger’s existentialist philosophical theory as the core theoretical support and following the principle of seeing the big picture in a small way to analyse the work. By analysing the imagery of blood in the text, this paper identifies the triple meaning of blood in work as representing life, kinship and the value of life. In the second and third parts, this essay further analyses and discusses the character Xu Sanguan’s concept of death and his transcendence of death, as well as the sense of life and its values, conveyed throughout the work, by analysing the character’s act of selling blood. Ultimately, the paper concludes that the characters’ life consciousness is based on a struggle with suffering and self-giving and is guided by a sense of life that leads to a transcendence of death.
Keywords
Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, transcendence of death, life consciousness
References
1. Zhang Hong (1998).The Psychoanalysis of Blood——From Medicine to Chronicle of a Blood Merchant.Shanghai Literature, (12).
2. Yu Hua (2012). Chronicle of a Blood Merchant.Beijing: Writers Publishing House.
3. Wang Jin (2016). Between Life and Death: A Re-Reading of To Live from Heidegger’s “Philosophy of Death”.Journal of Language and Literature Studies, (08):59-60.
4. Kong Runnian (2008).The formation and historical impact of the Western Zhou bloodline ethic.The Journal Of Humanities, (03):34-39.
5. Bureau of Compilation of the Works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (2012). Complete Works of Marx and Engels. People’s Publishing House.
6. Chen Xinhan (2022). Philosophical Reflections on the Life Consciousness.Philosophical Research,(01):20-29+125.
7. Martin Heidegger (1987).Being and Time. Chen Jiaying, Wang Qingjie translate. Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company.
8. Abraham H Maslow(1987). Motivation and Personality. Xu Jinsheng, Cheng Zhaoxiang translate, Huaxia Publishing House.
9. David Eagleman(2010).List of Lives. Zhao Haibo translate. Beijing: Citic Press Group.
10. Zang Kejia(2018). Selected Poems of Zang Kejia.Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House,423.
Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-043-1
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-044-8
- Published Date
- 31 October 2023
- Series
- Communications in Humanities Research
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7064
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7072
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7064/10/20231243
- Copyright
- 31 October 2023
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited